MincMincMinc wrote: »

React wrote: »

Vengeance has been confirmed to be coming as a permanent feature alongside GH with update 50, and they've even gone as far as making a large number of the "rewards" offered through the new PVP progression system vengeance-specific.

Still can't help but believe this is a terrible misstep in what is otherwise a stellar year for the studio. I've seen some people in favor of vengeance, but far more seem opposed, especially within the PVP community itself. As far as population goes, the last vengeance test was practically dead on PC NA after the first night, with GH having more players on it every single evening even when considering the different population caps.

I find myself wishing they'd have scrapped this altogether and focused their PVP-related efforts on improving the existing content, as well as further developing the upcoming mid-size zone and reward system.

They picked up on the notion of there needs to be a better entry into pvp because the old school concept of under50 into nocp into vet pvp doesnt work now that people level to cp160 within a week and only see population in the main campaign.

My biggest gripe is why did they do the vengeance perk system in such a goofy way. Why confuse new players even more by making a new convoluted system to learn? If I was designing vengeance I would have just made the perk system LOOK like fake gear unlocks and slottable gear only in pvp. They could have made essentially vengeance only gear that was basic noproc stat gear and simple stat gear effects like clever alchemist. A basic gear campaign like this actually could have been a good learning environment that is low investment. They could even redesign the alliance vendors and such to accommodate the new vengeance gear and etc.

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Subclassing was probably already planned to get them through the class reworks so players had the cop-out where if they didn't have a DK they could still slot the OP meta dk skills on their character.

It seems like the "performance" aspect of the test was abandoned as we have seen that the DK and 2handed changes were already on their way a while ago. Meaning they began reworking way before any vengeance data was digested to make decisions off of. We never even tested interactions of set bonuses or stats with vengeance skills.....why would you start redesigning all of the skills in the game before you even knew how to design them to avoid performance issues with the rest of your systems?

The zos brass just put pvp on the backburner again like they have done every time in the past when they "fixed" cyrodil by reducing the player population cap. They could have chosen streamlined skills with light animations with no lag and 900 player full population cyrodil........ But instead they decided to turn the game into a hack and slash experience with Flamboyant overdone VFX complicated 5 paragraph proc skills and low server population lag >> need to reduce cyro population again >> Cyro is too big for 300 already, so we need a mini cyrodil so we can reduce the population again.

At a certain point we will see pve start to lag out and zos wont know what to do because they just kept digging the hole deeper.

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

I mean, I get the monetary reason why ZOS is doing them. In the sense of “we need money to fund the team, pay ever-escalating server rental costs, dole out dividends to Microsoft shareholders, avoid unemployment,” and so on… sure. They fit in that sense.

But based on my experience with doing all the Week 1 tasks to completion, Tamriel Tomes are just a tedious list of exceedingly dull chores. Dull chores that have very little to do with any semblance of fun.

For point of comparison, I have bought 8 battle passes in Marvel Rivals… and I’ve always found them kind of fun. One strong contributing factor is that Marvel Rivals has a core hedgehog concept of doing the matches. Whether you’re in “competitive ranked” or “quickmatch” or “practice vs AI,” the end result is the same. You’re running matches. Everything revolves around that solid focal point (save a few cute optional mini-modes).

Since said game has such a laser focus, the developers have been able to design battle pass activities that revolve around doing things that you would naturally be doing ANYWAY. You’re going to be getting 20 critical hits, or killing 75 enemies, or doing 12 matches, or the like by just playing the game. That’s it. They’re not really chores at all. Again, you were going to do all those things ANYWAY. The Battle Pass just gives you extra motivation to log in and play the game. It feels very organic.

Oh sure, sometimes you’ll want to veer away from one kind of character to another to get some of them done in a prompter manner. Play as The Punisher to get 20 critical hits via headshots with your machine gun (which takes less than one match to achieve) or play a healer for 2 matches to get 25k healing done. But at the end of the day, you’re still doing the core activity of playing the matches. You’re doing the thing, just with your toes dipped in a slightly different player experience.

You also have plenty of alternative options. Each week’s list of battle pass activities has 12 or so possible ones to focus on and you are only expected to do six of them. Then you’re done with the weekly challenges. So if you REALLY don’t want to heal, you don’t have to. You have plenty of other things you can do to make progress… all the while enjoying the core gameplay loop. It’s a genuinely nice experience.

Tamriel Tomes… are not a nice experience. Instead of offering a diverse list of activities to participate in that enable people to earn progress by just naturally playing the game, they're just tedious nightmare filler-content. I play this game to explore, do quests, and wander the world… not to run around in circles collecting 90 wood and 90 silken cocoons. Not to camp a public dungeon event boss in Wrothgar for five minutes, kill him in thirty seconds, and then do that cycle another two times while reading a history book about the Panama Canal to stay awake. Not to be part of a herd of players corralled into the Wrothgar Overworld to pick away at 1,000 monsters, which… why? Why even design something like that? The monsters in the overworld aren't numerous enough to support the entire playerbase being funneled into instances of the zone to fulfill personal 1,000 monster kill quotas. You're creating pure tedium.

This isn’t fun. Now, in fairness, I know “fun” isn’t really the goal. Hasn’t been for a while. I mean, look: when you’re paying a monthly subscription of $149.99 per year AND buying loot crates AND sinking money into battle passes that are 50% more expensive than competitors’ battle passes while offering only a fraction of the costumes and cosmetics… you get motivated to take the time to read developer interviews. I read Matt Firor talking about “adding more things to the game to keep players busy.” BUSY. Not entertained. Not having fun. Kept BUSY. A very telling word choice. Stuck with me.

That’s what the Tamriel Tome system currently is. It’s busy work. It’s a second job that you can start when you’re done with your first one. I have 6 to 8 hours to play your game each week, tops. It would take me all that time just to keep up with these chores. Chores that are not only dull the first time, but dull the additional 2 to 5 times that I'm expected to repeat them. I could just not do them, but then I'd get behind... and I'd never catch up. I wouldn't finish the first battle pass and then the second one would drop and I wouldn't finish that one and then the third one would drop and I'd be so far in the hole that I'd never get them done (unless I pay real money for Tamriel Tome points, which I'm sure is in the works). Ugh.

In its present incarnation, I don’t think the Tamriel Tome system is a good fit for ESO. It doesn’t play to any of the game’s strengths, it doesn’t have any intuitive flow with core gameplay loops, and if this is supposed to take the place of new zones to keep us “busy” and “engaged” between major content drops so that we are retained as players… good luck with that. You’re going to burn people out.

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As an addendum, it doesn’t help that I’m about 62 hours into the excellent Crimson Desert and loving the heck out of it. It is shockingly JARRING to go from an epic adventure replete with stunning vistas, awesome character abilities, and large-scale pitched battles to… ye olde chore list. “Another 30 ancestor silk to go. Oh, better remember to claim my daily log-in bonus of 15 tome points… because ZOS added the daily log-in bonus back into the game, only now with a far shoddier reward… because all the previous rewards are now locked behind these new chores. Stunning and brave.”

Ugh. I loved that month vacation between endeavors and this. Felt like the good ol’ days, before I apparently needed a second job ethnically-cleansing Wrothgar in order to give my kids a new pair of Raynor boots.